Rambles with a Magical Flare
by La Femme Du Lac
Summary: Rambles about our favorite Maurauders and all that concern them. No particular ships except LJ.
1. The Blood Traitor

**_Disclaimer:_ '**I don't own the computer I'm using (it's Lily's). I don't own the letters I'm typing (they belong to whomever created words). I don't own that last sentence. Or that one. Or that one. Or—you get the point.

'I don't own the point either...'

**_Disclaimer for the disclaimer:_** I don't own that disclaimer. It belongs to Fool Moon and/or Sirius Black in Fool Moon's story 'Sirius Writes.' The plot's acoming!

**_from _Rambles with a Magical Flare  
The Blood-Traitor**

"I'm sick of this family," a 16-year-old Sirius said to one of the portraits, knowing that he wouldn't care how Sirius felt. No one ever did in this house. It was torture living in this hell-hole.

"You have told me this eight hundred forty six times, my precocious blood traitor—"

"I knew I should have talked to Andromeda. All of the paintings in this god forsaken house always insult me if I come near them, just because I ruined the so-called 'family pride' for being sorted into a house! It's bloody insane."

"Well, my ungrateful great grandson, we are the noble—"

"And ancient house of Black," Sirius muttered along with the portrait, cringing at what that house did to him.

"—and all of our minds work in a suitably twisted fashion. It's what all of the interbreeding _does_."

"But why do we need to breed every single pureblood like we're dogs? My best friend is a pureblood and he could care less what type of blood he marries."

"It instills pride, you ungrateful mutt."

"Pride from the same people as my parents. Pride from the same people as my cousins. Of course that's who I want to spend the rest of my life surrounded by: people who don't give a shit about skills and just mark someone by blood."

"Why don't you do something about it then? Isn't that what this era is about, changing the world?"

"You know what? I think I will." And with that, Sirius grabbed his leather jacket and left the room with a particular nasty look on his face. But the portrait just sighed and shook his head, unable to do anything to change the boy's fate.


	2. Greyback's Revenge

**ATTENTION! SIXTH BOOK SPOILERS!**

**Disclaimer: **Need I say more?

**_from _Rambles with a Magical Flare**

**Greyback's Revenge**

I was about five whenever it happened.

My father had had an argument with a man called Greyback earlier that week. I couldn't get the picture of this man out of my head…his long yellowing fingernails…his sharp, elongated teeth…his blood-stained clothes…

I was playing in the backyard, blissfully unaware of what was lurking in the grass as I chased the fireflies that lit up the darkening field as stars to the midnight sky. The moon arose and I heard the screams of a man in pain, but thought nothing of it. My mother heard the shrieks and recognized them as the monthly, ominous danger. She called for me, but I was too far in the field to hear her. She ran out into the field.

Then it leaped for its prey.

It resembled a colossal dog, hunger flickering in its eyes as it saw me running….I was fleeing from its bloodstained jaws….It grabbed my right leg, I felt a sharp jolt though me and heard a snap. I fell and screamed and thrashed and kicked and grabbed at the ground…none of it worked. Grass being pulled from out of my tiny fingers' grasp. A shock of fear passed through my body as I realized, _It wants to take me away from my parents_. This was a fear beyond anything else for my young mind. Through my tussle with the wolf, I saw my mother's feet come into view through my eyes wet from terror….She screamed something and a red light burst from her wand. I heard a yelp and a thud. The jaws were no more clamped on my leg, but the damage had been done…the edges of my eyes were darkening…


	3. A Lily in the Rain

**Disclaimer:** Keyword: FANfiction

**Author's Note: **This Lily is semi-based on a Lily in a story on called 'Lust or Love' by Sarinileni. Check it out, it's really good!

I actually got an idea for each of these rambles…I'm going to do one for each of the Marauders (including Peter) and Lily. So that means that after this one, there's two more to go!

**_from _****Rambles with a Magical Flare**

**A Lily in the Rain**

Lily had always believed that rain was calming, as was most of the other aspects of nature. There was just something about it, clotting her already soaking hair and mixing with her salty tears, that had made her _forget_.

Forgetting was luxury ever since Lily had lost her virginity.

She had known it was sheer stupidity that had made her do it and the next day when he broke up with her, saying that he "needed some space." She knew not to cry over him. They had only seen each other in classes and in the Great Hall. They rarely gave the relationship a chance. _That's what I get for being a Muggleborn_, Lily shrugged in her head.

When she was trying to forget everything, she meant everything…the war that had just sprung up in the wizarding world; the almost un-namable Dark Lord who had been gathering followers for approximately seven years now; the horror stories written in the Daily Prophet about countless Muggles and rebels who had lost their lives against the so-called "Death Eaters"…. It was all just a bit too much for her mind to bear.

When she believed that everything was shed and the curtain of invulnerability was torn away, letting everyone see _her_, she thought of James. It had been a little less than two years she had told him off for torturing a Slytherin at the tree by the lake. She looked up at the tree, her mascara flowing in artsy curves down her cheeks. She sighed shakily and held back new tears from flowing. He had changed _so much_.

He was no longer the overconfident git he always was around her. He had grown up over the summer somehow. He had stopped asking her out every second he saw her and he seemed more solemn in some way that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She didn't know what she thought of this new James.

She remembered what she had said to him underneath the tree her eyes were fixed upon. _"You make me SICK!"_…. Somehow, she no longer desired to throw up her most recent meal around him. On the contrary, she had butterfly wings tickling her sides when in his presence, but that felt…right. For some reason, something that James had told his friends and she had overheard stuck in her mind.

"Padfoot, that was when I was fifteen, stupid, and in love with her…" 

"When did you fall out of love with me?" she whispered to the images flickering through her mind, knowing no answer would come but asking anyway. She leaned over the banister until her reddened nose met her clammy partially entwined fingers. She poked her foot in front of her, letting it catch the last few droplets of rain before the clouds dissipated and the sun returned. She let the sun dry her a little and silently got up and opened the huge doors to the entrance hall, finding no one and expecting to see no one for quite a while.


	4. A Challenge for Prongs

**_Disclaimer:_** I own nothing except my sanity, which I have lost a year ago along with my CD collection.

**_Author's Note:_** I may get a lot of "James didn't think that way, OMG!" reviews from this chapter, but oh well. This is before James's head deflated and he and Lily fell in love. I'll say…his and Lily's fourth year. Remember that James was a jerk before he became attractive to Lily. This is also before 'A Lily in the Rain' so I think I may have to rearrange these rambles a little bit.

**_From _Rambles with a Magical Flare**

_**A Challenge for Prongs**_

"Lily, will you go out with me?"

I had asked her this at least eight hundred and forty five times this year. I knew what the answer was going to be. But I asked anyway.

"For the four hundred and seventy eighth time this year, Potter, my answer is no."

I knew it! She still hates me! Clearly she does because she obviously isn't counting.

Why does she hate me? Why can't see just see me for whatever all these other girls who hang around me see?

Those girls are incredibly annoying. They push their cleavage out to enormous, unbelievable heights and smile and laugh at everything I say, just to get me to notice them. And even though I'm a guy and I don't mind that thing, I'd much rather have a girl who I can talk to, a girl who challenges me.

That's what I see in Lily anyway, a challenge. I know that I should see a girl as so much more than a challenge or a thing to tame, but it's better than putting on a fake face and saying, "I care about you, (insert random girl's name here), even though I know nothing about you except your physical attributes."

Maybe I should try becoming Lily's friend first and get to know more about her. It seems to work real well for Remus; he could have any girl he wants. He knows a lot of them and I know for a fact that at least half of them want to be more than friends. I've told him this too, and he just smiles and shakes his head at me, saying that he's not ready for a girl friend yet.

Nah, becoming Lily's friend would take too much time and effort, considering that I'm already on her bad side.

Maybe Lily forgot that I asked her out. It was morning the first time and now it's suppertime. I could probably get away with asking her out again if she forgot. I doubt she would forget, though. Oh, well, I'll try again.

"Lily, will you go out with me?"

"NO!"


	5. Down the Path

**Disclaimer:** I own it all! Mine! Mine! MINE! OK, in the real world none of this is mine, so don't sue.

**Author's Note: **Final ramble! Yeah! This one is about our least favorite Marauder: Wormtail. This one is Wormtail's thoughts in the few seconds in the fourth book before he killed Cedric. This chapter is semi-inspired by Star Wars, like how once you start going down the path to the Dark Side, you can't go back.

Oh, yes, and just pretend that Voldemort killed Bertha Jorkins, not Wormtail.

**_from _Rambles With a Magical Flare**

**_Down the Path_**

"_Kill the spare."_

My heart started beating fast, like a train speeding off its tracks. In my hiding decade, I had forgotten what it was like to kill.

Once you go down the path, you can't go back.

The last time I had killed—almost fourteen years ago—it was a despicable Muggle who said that he was sent by Voldemort. He wore a pair of white gloves that he protected carefully, like her didn't want any blood on them. Snape was the one who convinced me to kill him. He kept on saying things like 'Reasoning with Muggles is the other side's job… He's befouling the Dark Lord's name by claiming to be in servitude to him…Killing this man would mean something to the Dark Lord…'

Because I have never been one to ignore a command, especially someone as sinister as Snape, I killed the Muggle. His eyes were widened in surprise, his mouth half opened as though he was about to make his case. If only I had known what killing him had meant…

By killing him, I had sealed Lily and James' fate. It didn't matter if it was their Secret Keeper or not, I had killed an innocent man. I was not the same chubby, but just child I was in school. If I could kill a stranger…I could not imagine what I could do to my closest friends. I had gone too far down the path; I couldn't go back.

Then the dreams came.

Every night, every time I tried to get sleep, I would see their faces. I could see the look on James' faces when he saw Voldemort in their sitting room…the final look on his face would loom over mine…

My mind came back to the present and I raised my wand to the face that I looked so much like James…I moved my wand a couple inches to the boy next to Harry and yelled the incantation that had destroyed so many families and killed so many dreams.

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

Once you go down the path, you can't go back.


End file.
